Royal Farms Famous Fresh Chicken Dinner

Most convenience stores have found success selling fresh food with the over whelming  majority of them are known for selling fresh hot coffee and breakfast itmes, others lunch but at Royal Farms they are known for their Chicken Dinner.

While Royal Farms are open 24 hours a day, the c-store is focused on its freshly-prepared foods, like fresh, never frozen chicken. The item can be prepared and breaded on site in a variety of ways, including off the bone, on sandwiches and in salads and that sets it apart from other C-stores according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

Royal Farms has a line of grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat or Heat-N-Eat  items like soda, milk and water, the 5,400-square-foot store and gas station features its own line of snack items, such as Chesapeake-flavored potato chips, nuts and fresh-baked items with  both Indoor and outdoor seating,.

Fresh means fresh at Royal Farms and customers respect and appreciate fresh food according to Johnson.  At one recent New Jersey store opening it was reported that “buzz surrounding the store’s opening continued well into the lunch rush the following day, where cars frequently had to circle the lot to find parking with all of more than 50 parking spaces filled. Motorists started parking on entrance driveways, and wait time for chicken orders timed out at close to 30 minutes.”

What is your brand doing better than the competition?  What are your customers willing to wait for?  Invite Foodservice Solutions® to complete a Grocerant Program Assessment, Grocerant ScoreCard, or for product positioning or placement assistance, or call our Grocerant Guru®.  Since 1991 www.FoodserviceSolutions.us  of Tacoma, WA has been the global leader in the Grocerant niche. Contact: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us or 253-759-7869

Grocerant Guru’s Ten Clues for a Food Focused Start-Up

The undercurrent’s of retail success begins with an understanding where the consumer has been and where they are headed. Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru®, Steven Johnson understands that the consumer is dynamic not static. If you are starting a new food focused company or fighting to stay on top here are 10 clues to keep your brand dynamic:

1. Symbolism: Why you are there! The most successful brands are inclusive include values greater than themselves. A lifestyle, a philosophy, an emotion a point in time aka customer relevance.

2. A story: Most major brands have a story. Examples: if you like Ford vehicles, you might be familiar with the story of Henry Ford or if you love your Nikes, you probably know how the Nike swoosh logo was created.  What’s your story? It’ the Why behind the buy.

3. A track record: When your business is first starting out, don't fool yourself into believing that your marketing efforts are 'brand building' efforts. They're not because to build a real brand, you have to have an extensive track record with consumers. It’s not what you want to sell.  Rather it’s what Consumers buy form you becomes the story.

4. Trust: When you've consistently delivered for your customers long enough, you'll gain the type of trust that many brands have. Case in point: a friend of mine always reminds people that he won't buy an automobile that isn't a BMW. He's had a good experience with his and trusts so much in the company that he doesn't believe there's a better-made car.

5. Expectation: When a consumer chooses a product or service because of brand association, he or she is buying an expectation. Perhaps it's the expectation that the branded product is of higher quality or that the service will be provided in a more efficient manner.

6. Differentiation: Expectation is often borne of differentiation. Many brands offer products and services that are commodities but they're successful in developing some differentiation for their products and services that consumers are sold on.

7. Imitators: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and you're probably not a 'brand' until you have competitors trying to copy you. Welcome to my world. Haha  

8. Market leadership: Top brands are usually looked at as leaders in the markets they compete in. Market leadership does not mean pricing. Look at Trader Joes, Aldi, Wal-Mart, Lidl consumer adoption and market perception drive leadership.

9. Adaptability: The best brands are flexible and capable of reshaping, reinventing themselves and their messages over time. Coca-Cola is a good example of a brand that has never abandoned its core product but has evolved its message over time to keep up with changes in the marketplace and society at large.

10. A strong marketing presence: Although it's nice to believe that you can market yourself for free on Facebook and Twitter, the reality is that brands aren't advertising on television and radio because they're dumb. Building and maintaining brand equity requires consumer relevance.  Consumers are dynamic not static your marketing efforts must continually evolve.

Success does leave clues www.FoodserviceSolutions.us  is the global leader in grocerant niche business development.  We can help you identify, quantify and qualify additional food retail segment opportunities.  Has your company had a Grocerant ScoreCard completed Grocerant Program Assessment, or new Grocerant niche product Ideation?  Want one?  Call 253-759-7869 Email: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us

Grocerant Guru Foodservice Transparency equals Authenticity

Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru® Steven Johnson reminds regular viewers of this blog that ‘less is more’ in the minds-eye of the consumer and transparency in labeling, packaging, and menus equals authenticity in the minds-eye of the consumers and that builds loyalty.

In a new report form the Food Marketing Institute titled: U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends 2017 found that “when it comes to how retail channels meet consumers’ need for transparency, natural and organic, online-only, club, fresh-focused, and midmarket traditional grocery stores make the top of the list. Conversely, retail channels trailing in transparency include: convenience, discount, supercenter, limited, dollar, drug and value-focused.”

FMI President and CEO Leslie G. Sarasin stated  “In the competitive food retail landscape and in an age in which information moves faster and faster, the consumer demand for clear and honest answers offer a zip-line to confidence in the complex food system,” “[Consumers] can handle the truth, and the information they do want to know, they want delivered in a clear, forthright, trustworthy and easy-to-find way that conveys some sense of vulnerability and openness. This is a crucial area because I think honest clarity is the currency of trust in the digital age.”

According to Trends, while less traditional retailers enjoy more grocery traffic and shopper loyalty, 8 percent of shoppers still claim to have “no primary store.” Limited assortment (25 percent), natural (17 percent), convenience (11 percent), ethnic (11 percent) and online-only (11 percent) food stores are increasingly frequented by shoppers; however, 45 percent of consumers who do have a primary store view it as an ally in their wellness pursuits.

Is direct to consumer the next big wave of disruption targeting traditional grocery stores? FMI data also suggests that millennials have become more comfortable with using online shopping for their grocery needs, although they still order only a limited amount of food products online.  Without doubt this is a trend picking up in urban centers and spreading across the country.

Invite Foodservice Solutions® to complete a Grocerant Program Assessment, Grocerant ScoreCard, or for product positioning or placement assistance, or call our Grocerant Guru®.  Since 1991 www.FoodserviceSolutions.us  of Tacoma, WA has been the global leader in the Grocerant niche. Contact: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us or 253-759-7869

Grocerant Sales Battle over Share-of-Stomach

Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru® coined the term Grocerant after his first visit to Eatzi’s back in 1996.  He and was published in both FoodService Director and Nation’s Restaurant News in August  the same year in  an opinion article called, Call Them Grocerants. 

Since 1996 Foodservice Solutions® primary focus has been Grocerant Niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food and what a journey it has been.  The Grocerant Niche is all about Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food.  It’s about the consumer migration away from traditional restaurant meals eaten out, away from CPG pantry stocking from legacy grocery stores, and away from high priced milk and bread from convenience stores too fresh food fast for takeout, takeaway, to-go, and drive-thru’s meals to go or delivered via a meal kit.  

Foodservice retail today is about Share of Stomach who is winning the battle of What’s for Dinner. While foodservice trade media, the ilk of Progressive Grocer, Supermarket News, Nation’s Restaurant News, Convenience Store News and the National Restaurant Association all stepped up their focus on the grocerant niche each tries to define it as their own.  They are all wrong.  It’s the about the consumer and foodservice retailers battle for share of stomach. 

Our team suspects that all of the attention, accolade, and success that our own Grocerant Guru® has had helping industry titans and start-ups find success with in the grocerant niche has caused quite a stir. In fact daily readership of our blogs posted to our social media accounts has hit a new record of 26,250 views per day.  Thank you.   

The team at Foodservice Solutions® thanks all of you for getting helping us become the global leader in the grocerant niche and maintain that leadership.  Why, all of the attention now? Increased customer migration, evolving consumer consumption patterns, and increased access to Grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food.  Evolving meal occasions day-parts, channels, and snacking  have help evolve the battle for Share of Stomach. The Grocerant niche is here to stay. 

Consumer migration from legacy points of fresh food distribution too new points of fresh food distribution that highlight take-out, take-away, and on-the-go consumption will continue to drive change in the retail foodservice landscape.  Today the grocerant niche is fast becoming a disruptive force driven by ongoing customer migration according to our Grocerant Guru®.

It’s was 2015 that we saw Americans spending more eating out than on groceries for the very first time.  That reallocation of spending has created by what Foodservice Solutions® team has coined Eating-Out while Eating-In. 

Success does leave clues and since 1991 www.FoodserviceSolutions.us  has picked up important customer relevant clues and exceled helping others drive top line sales and bottom line profits leveraging insights from those clues. You too can drive incremental top line sale and bottom line profits.  Visit: www.GrocerantGuru.com or Email: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us for information on how you can edify sales at your operation. 

 

Foodservice and Technology Inseparable

When it comes to retail foodservice today technology is seemingly as important a fresh food with flavor according to Foodservice Solutions® Grocerant Guru® Steven Johnson.  How customers order their food, where they order from are evolving how we define service in foodservice today. 

In a new study conducted by Oracle Hospitality titled “The Hotel 2025 and Restaurant 2025 reports conducted in February 2017 proved to be very insightful. Here are some of the insights:

Recognition and Personalization Will be a Driver for Future Technologies

• 33 percent of restaurant and 72 percent of hotel operators say that guest recognition via facial biometrics will be in use within the next five years.
• 31 percent of restaurant guests and 41 percent of hotel guests will be more likely to visit an establishment with greater frequency if they are recognized by a server or associate without having to give their name or show a loyalty card.
• Both restaurant (49 percent) and hotel (62 percent) guests agree that having this recognition would improve their experience.
• 28 percent of restaurant customers would visit more often and 45 percent said it would improve their experience if service was faster because they were recognized.
• 42 percent of restaurant guests find suggestions based on health invasive and 68 percent find suggestions based on digital footprint invasive.
• 47 percent of hotel guests agree that using artificial intelligence to suggest items based on past purchases would improve their experience.
• 72 percent of hotel operators agree that AI-based systems that leverage guest preferences and buying history to make targeted dining recommendations will be mainstream by 2025.

Consumers are Warming to Voice-Activated Experiences

• 36 percent of restaurant guests say ordering through a virtual assistant would improve experience and 17 percent would visit more often, along with 50 percent and 33 percent of hotel guests respectively.
• 59 percent of hotel guests believe controlling their room via a voice-activated device would enhance the guest experience and operators agree. Hotel operators polled indicated that managing room control and ambiance management (78 percent) via voice activation would be widespread by 2025. Hotel operators also believed that ordering room or hotel services (70 percent) via voice activation would be adopted by 2025.
• Operators are keen on gathering customer feedback by voice; 61 percent of restaurant operators and 68 percent of hotels said this will be in use in the next 5 years.

Virtual Reality will Enhance the Booking and on-Property Experience in Hotels

• Consumers also indicated that virtual reality tours of hotel properties (66 percent) and virtual reality lounges for entertainment (44 percent) would improve the guest experience.
• Hotel operators also believe virtual reality technology will be widespread by 2025 with a variety of use cases: staff training (68 percent), guest entertainment on property (64 percent), and previewing meeting rooms (63 percent).

Robots Won’t be Replacing Hospitality Staff Anytime Soon

• 50 percent of restaurant guests said being served by a robot would not improve the guest experience and 40 percent would visit less.
• 37 percent of hotel guests said being served by a robot would not improve the guest experience and 22 percent would visit less.
• 64 percent of restaurant and 58 percent of hotel operators say that the use of robots for cleaning is appealing.

Operators Begin To Consider Investment in Wearable Technology

• 51 percent of restaurants and 63 percent of hotels say staff activity monitoring via wearable device will be in use in the next 5 years.
• 59 percent of restaurants and 78 percent of hotels say that staff checking into work and onto workstations via wearable device will be in use in the next 5 years.

Do your marketing tactics look more like yesterday that tomorrow?  Visit www.FoodserviceSolutions.us for more information or contact: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us Remember success does leave clues and we just may the clue you need to propel your continued success.